Back in January, I wrote about My Brother’s New Venture. With his permission, I am now going to be writing a few more posts on the topic.

Do You Want to Own Your Own Business or Boss People Around?

Does this seem like a silly question to you? Do you think to yourself- Of course if I own the business, I’m the boss. If that’s the case, you might want to re-think entrepreneurship.

This is the problem my brother, E, and his partner are facing right now. His partner, who used to be a bartender, thought that buy owning his own business, he would get away from customer service. He thought that he could just be the boss and not actually have to do any of the work. Now, I know lots of people reading this are going to be rolling their eyes at his attitude, but think about it. How many people honestly understand all the work that goes into running their own business, and how many really just want to be able to boss other people around?

E is now in the process of buying his partner out. He has someone else who has been working for them as an employee who wants to buy in, but does not have the cash to do so at right now. They thought at first they could hold out until the employee had more cash, but the current partner is just too miserable and making everyone else miserable. When he walks through the property and sees something that needs to be done, he does not want to do it. He wants to find somebody else to tell to do it. But this does not quite work when the one employee is off shift and the other person around is supposed to be your equal partner.

He does not know what he will do once he is bought out. All he knows (and all E and the employee know) is that he is currently miserable and making everyone around him miserable. Better to get out now.

It is Different When It is Your’s

E, on the other hand, is loving being a business owner. He does not mind all the little bits of work that goes into it. He says that while at home, dishes may sit around in the drainer for days or weeks, but at the guest house, if he sees dishes that need to be put away, he just stops and does it. Earlier this week, he sat down and created financial spreadsheets for the business- a task he has never been willing to do for himself, but he really liked it. He even called me to tell me about it (since we had already talked about me blogging about this), because it was something he had never expected to enjoy.

You know how people with children always tell those who complain about kids “It’s different when they’re yours”? Well, apparently, the same thing applies to owning your own business, at least for some people. No matter how boring the task, or outside of your normal interests, when you’re doing it for your baby, it’s different.

My brother has always been willing to work hard- be it physical labor or mundane tasks. He just has not liked doing them for other people. Now that he is doing that work for himself, he loves it. He understands the risks of being a business owner. He is in the middle of dealing with one of those risks right now, but at the same time, he now cannot see himself ever working for anyone else again.

And I have to admit, I am pretty proud of my big brother, the small business owner.